First time we visited this museum was because we registered to a workshop creating Eid banner to celebrate the last Eid ul Adha. Located in Anderson Road, Thornbury, Victoria, about half hour driving from the city. If you are not driving, this museum can be reached using tram number 1 or 6 from Flinders Street Station to Moreland Road, and continue walking about 20 minutes.

The Islamic Museum of Australia provides at least five main exhibition, including Islamic Faith, Islamic Contributions to Civilisation, Islamic Art, Islamic Architecture, and Australian Muslim History. Islam, which means submission, is a word derived from the Arabic word Salam, or peace, implying contentment with God and all His creations. It is an Abrahamic religion that stresses absolute surrender to the one true God, known in Arabic as Allah.

It is interesting to find the fact that the Muslim fishermen from Makassar in Southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, made annual visit to Australia and they influenced people of Northern Australia.

My favorite gallery is the Islamic Contributions to Civilisation, as the scientist from the Islamic Golden Age always impress me in every ways. They also have a set of giant chess board game and it really attract the children to know more about it. Chess came to Europe from the Persian game, Shatranj. The original pieces include Shah (King), Firz (Persian) or Wazir (Arabic and Turkish) means the King’s adviser, Rukh (Rook), Persian for chariot, and Pil (Persian) or Alfil (Arabic) means Elephant, renamed ‘bishop’ in English. The term ‘checkmate’ (shah maat) means the King is dead, came from the original language. Not only from the past, they also display Muslim contribution in the recent years, especially Australian Muslim.

 

In the Islamic Architecture section, they display many beautiful pictures of  mosques, tombs, palaces, forts, schools and urban buildings. There is also a miniature (scale 1:100) of Dome of the Rock (Qubbath As-Sakhrah), Jerussalem. It is an octagonal shrine that has a central dome covered in gold leaf. It is one of the oldest and most significant examples of Islamic architecture.

 

This museum also provides a quite big prayer room (mushalla) inside the building. Separated with hijab to differs the male and female area, this place is really comfortable and peaceful. We took some pictures of the museum, we hope it will inspire us to learn more about our religion and spread its beautiful teachings by all means, with the will of Allah.